Brain structure can tell us a lot about reading skills. Importantly, though, the brain is malleable — it changes when we learn a new skill or practice an already acquired one.
For instance, young adults who studied language intensively increased their cortical thickness in language areas. Similarly, reading is likely to shape the structure of the left Heschl’s gyrus and temporal pole. So, if you want to keep your Heschl’s thick and thriving, pick up a good book and start reading.
[…] it’s worth considering what might happen to us as a species if skills like reading become less prioritised. Our capacity to interpret the world around us and understand the minds of others would surely diminish. In other words, that cosy moment with a book in your armchair isn’t just personal – it’s a service to humanity.
I just finished digging into this so you don’t have to— his actual research article is the former (out of a cohort of 1200 people some scored higher on a test and after studying their brainMRIs there are some consistent differences).
The title and the stats about how much reading has declined in the UK from the conversation article seem to be just fluff for interest. The amount people read wasn’t a subject of the research (and wasn’t mentioned). I think the author was just trying to make his work more relatable but framing the article this way was a bad call imo.